Haaaaaappy new year, loyal reader!

Wait … has it really been a full year? Good grief! It feels like yesterday (no hyperbole) that I was sitting down writing “So Long, 2021: A Year in Review at Studio Simpatico.” But alas, here we are, ready to reflect on another year of great colleagues, collaborators, clients, and challenges.

Thank you for another fulfilling year, everyone.

With gratitude,
Tamara

Winter

We kick off 2022 in a big way. We are up to our ears in work, and for the first time since its founding, need some help managing projects and keeping the trains running on time. To the rescue: Enter the creative, organized, and incredible Mingwei Ma, PM extraordinaire! Mingwei brings agency experience, incredible problem solving skills, and a knack for designing processes and automating everything possible.

Mingwei arrives on the scene just in time to support a jaw dropping announcement from our long-term client Fireblocks: They’ve raised $500M through their Series E, at a valuation of $8 billion. Studio Simpatico is engaged to help them design our biggest creative to date (literally): an animation to debut on the Nasdaq Tower in Times Square!

As January wraps, we are excited to support an announcement from Ten To One Rum: a limited edition rum for Black History month (support meaning both web design and development, and picking up a few bottles of the tasty rum ourselves).

We spend the winter putting the finishing touches on two huge launches.

The first is designing and building an online publishing platform to bring the beloved motorcycle enthusiast print magazine Iron & Air to the digital realm. We partner closely with the founders to create a custom WordPress theme rich with tools and components that allow the I&A team’s editorial stories and photography to shine. The site is monetized using the subscription platform from Leaky Paywall.

The second is a new visual identity and website for Grasshopper Bank. In 2022, Grasshopper Bank relaunched its business with a new CEO and new core tech platform. Studio Simpatico was chosen to partner with the marketing team to design and build a website that reflects the company’s new focus and messaging. Simpatico created an atomic design system of content modules to be used to create targeted landing pages for any product or use case.

Spring

Exciting news permeates our Slack conversations and social media channels: Iron & Air was nominated for a Webby Award in the “Travel and Lifestyle” category! All tasks are temporarily deprioritized as we invest all our efforts in harassing friends, family, colleagues, and strangers to submit their votes.

Meanwhile, we’ve got more cooking for Fireblocks: this time, OOH ads in the Miami airport.

As the weather starts to warm up, our collaboration with MakeITAllWork comes to a close, wrapping an enormous migration for Forward.com from the Symphony CMS to WordPress. The site goes live in April, debuting a custom WordPress theme designed by the in-house design team and developed by Simpatico. Simpatico’s work included integrations with both Piano and Iterable. Shoutout to our partners at WP Engine for their superb job supporting The Forward.

The Simpatico Offsite

In May, the Simpatico team is thrilled to gather in NYC for our first team get-together since the world shutdown. (Deep thoughts: Do you call it an offsite if you no longer have a site?) The two-day gathering provides the opportunity to work with our favorite photographer Kelly Williams.

The team gets to know one another, Zeth gets the opportunity to re-enact our favorite GIF (see above), and we separate into small groups to compete in the first annual Simpatico NYC scavenger hunt. (Congrats to Bruce, Nate, and Angela for taking home the gold.)

Summer

After working to develop an end-to-end product UX, brand identity, and marketing site for Landing Rock several years before, we partner with Bruce Bent II again to refresh the brand identity for the Double Rock Corporation, a cash management and financial technologies firm.

We also work with Orum and their branding agency Redscout on a new marketing site for the fintech startup. Orum is a platform for frictionless money movement. We spend several months extending Redscout’s beautiful visual identity work to a full demand generation marketing site featuring plenty of animations to better tell the story of Orum’s value.

Meanwhile, Tubetorial publishes an interview with me … featuring an awkwardly large photo. In the article, I reflect on all aspects (including the many hats I don) of running a small business.

Fall

We celebrate the launch of another initiative for our wonderful partners at the Association for National Advertisers. After working with them on the successful launch of SeeHer.com, we’re thrilled to partner again on the website for #EngageResponsibly, an initiative to combat online hate speech.

Meanwhile, we’re thrilled to welcome a familiar client back for a full website overhaul and brand refresh!. We worked with NYC search firm Nace Partners in 2016, and are so pleased to hear about the company’s amazing growth and success. We work with Nace’s founder Chris Nace and Head of Marketing Amanda Zamurs to launch a refresh of their visual identity and marketing website built on WordPress.

Autumn also sees Simpatico beginning our own content marketing efforts: In October, we announce our YouTube channel, a hub for client resource materials. Our first video, How to Hard Refresh & Clear the Cache, showcases our very own developer-turned-voice-talent Evan Thompson.

Approaching the holidays

As the leaves start to change, Simpatico partners with SimplyPut, a new startup with the mission of helping companies ask and answer data questions quickly while letting their data scientists focus on in-depth analysis. Our new rockstar designer Phebe Pierson leads the work on a new visual identity and marketing website design to help them tell their story. The site once again features the amazing Angela Huang’s illustrations.

Looking Ahead

Happy New Year, friends of Simpatico, and stay tuned. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram in 2023 to stay in-the-know about all our plans for the new year:

The launch of Slickdeals Money
A new website and booking UX for Silver Mirror, a NYC facial spa
A new website for Paladin, a SAAS product made for pro bono champions
Collaborations with several incredible nonprofits, including Big Green and Girl Be Heard